The chapels are all square and of the same height and size--twenty-eight
feet square and fifty-four feet high. They are all decorated in the
Gothic style, a uniformity which suggests that they were all built at
the same time, or very carefully copied from the first one planned. Each
contains a semicircular window, and four arched recesses for tombs. This
regularity of style has operated to some extent as a check upon the
excesses of the Churrigueresque school. The Golden Chapel--the second in
the south aisle--dates from the sixteenth century. All within it is
superbly gilded, the decoration reflecting credit on its author, Canon
Francisco Sanchez de Palencia, whose noble tomb is here. His dignities
are set forth on the beautiful plateresque _reja_. The chapel also
contains a notable skeleton or memento mori. The next chapel is called
after the Presidente de Lievana, and is adorned with some good paintings
by the dumb artist Navarrete, particularly by a copy of Titian’s
‘Deposition.’ The fourth chapel on this side contains the good statue of
a very good man, Canon Palacios, who died in the odour of sanctity in
the year 1591. We may now descend to the old cathedral by a doorway on
the right, close to a fine picture of the Madonna and Child and St.
John, by Morales. The monuments of Count Raymond and Doña Urraca must
have been destroyed to make room for this part of the new building. Good
paintings by Gallego may be seen in the Capilla de San Antonio on the
opposite side of the church. There are not many good tombs, the only
ones remaining to be mentioned being those of the Bishops Corrionero
(1620), Felipe Beltran (1783), and Agustino Varela (nineteenth century).
The sacristy is a gorgeous apartment, where mirrors, gilding, and
ornamentation of every style are combined to produce a not altogether
unpleasing effect. The treasury is rich in relics of doubtful
authenticity. The silver reliquaries were once the property of the
Knights Templars, whose cause Salamanca long upheld. Here you may gaze
(with a befittingly credulous air) upon three thorns from Christ’s
crown, a piece of the true cross, an arm of St. George, St. Lawrence’s
shoulder, the head of one of the eleven thousand virgins who escorted
St. Ursula, the hearts of St. Bartholomew and St. Sebastian, and the
bodies of five Spanish martyrs who suffered under the Vandals. More
interesting are a letter in St. Teresa’s handwriting, and a small
crucifix of blackened bronze, often confounded with the Cristo de las
Batallas, and probably of the same period and source. The chalice,
monstrance, and other sacred vessels are beautifully wrought, even for a
country where metal-working has been carried almost to perfection.
THE UNIVERSITY,
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